


Stardust

by VulpesVulpes713



Series: Fictober 2018 [17]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Established Relationship, Existentialism, Fictober 2018, Fluff, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Stars, True Love, klance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-10
Updated: 2018-11-10
Packaged: 2019-08-21 17:33:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16580960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VulpesVulpes713/pseuds/VulpesVulpes713
Summary: Prompt:“I’ve waited so long for this.”





	Stardust

**Author's Note:**

> I've also waited so long for this. A month of writing every day. I'm dead.
> 
> Dead.

“Hey Keith? Do you believe in Heaven?”

 

Lance’s hand tightens in his for a moment after asking, and then it slips from his grasp when he doesn’t answer right away.

 

“Keith-” Lance begins, but trails off when he sees the look that must be portrayed on Keith’s face. The blank gaze upwards into the stars, watching as one blinks from existence: unnoticed by any except those who just so happened to be looking at the right spot in the sky. Lance leans down over him, obscuring his view of the death that just occurred. “Hey, you okay-”

 

“No.”

 

Lance frowns, concern etched deep in his eyes.

 

“‘No’? I didn’t mean to ask-”

 

“No,” Keith interrupts, staring up into blue that’s shadowed by the night. “I was answering your first question.”

 

“Oh,” Lance hums, then leans back on the grass, scooting closer to Keith’s side. “Why not?”

 

And again, Keith takes his time answering. He tries to find the place that star had been moments ago, but it’s gone now. Lost. Just like that. 

 

And even his memory of it is fading.

 

“I think it’s too good to be true.”

 

Lance makes a noise of contemplation, playing with Keith’s fingers as he does.

 

“So what do you believe in then?”

 

And Keith knows he shouldn’t say it: knows how Lance will react if he finds out, but there’s a growing dread in his stomach, and he still can’t find the space that star had been. 

 

Because it’s just gone. Disappeared without a trace. 

 

And all that’s left is-

 

“Nothing.”

 

Lance sits up, staring down at him again in worry. And the tear that slips from Keith’s eye is too quick to stop. He’s overwhelmed, apparently, by the loss of a spec in the sky. 

 

“Nothing?” Lance repeats with a whisper, and when he sees the glisten on Keith’s cheek he trails off, tenderly wiping it away with his thumb. “Hey, what’s going on?”

 

Keith inhales. Then exhales. And for a long while he doesn’t fill his lungs again. 

 

But the look in Lance’s eyes prods him to breathe, so he does, keeping his gaze upwards.

 

“I just…worry, sometimes.”

 

“About what?” Lance urges, but it’s not demanding. And then, just like that he gets it. He understands. And when he does he gapes down at Keith in realization, hovering over him protectively. “Keith, are...are you afraid of dying?”

 

Another tear slips down his cheek, but Keith lets it. He feels it warm his skin. And he feels the cool air come in after to freeze the trail it leaves. 

 

And he stares up at the sky.

 

And he finds that spot: empty and black, devoid of the life it once held. 

 

The star is gone, and he’s the only one who saw it go. The only one who cares. But tomorrow he won’t. Tomorrow he’ll forget. Just like everything else that lives and dies.

 

A moment of sorrow, and then nothing. Like the hole in the heavens above. 

 

Is he afraid of dying?

 

“Yes…”

 

Yes he is. 

 

Lance’s lips are soft on his brow, and Keith shuts his eyes as they move across his lids. He reaches up, and runs his fingers through short brown hair, pulling Lance down. 

 

Closer.

 

Nearer. 

 

Until lips meet lips, and he drinks Lance in. 

 

If he could stay like this - in this perfect moment of stillness with the one he loves, surrounded by constellations he knows and secured by the familiar gravity of Earth - he thinks he would live his happiest life. If he could freeze time, and have this moment play on repeat forever, well...he wouldn’t mind one bit. 

 

But the kiss ends, as does the brief forever, and there are still tears in Keith’s eyes. 

 

“I don’t think there’s anything to fear, love,” Lance murmurs into his neck, tracing patterns along Keith’s jaw with gentle fingertips. “It’s just another step of life. The next adventure.”

 

“How can you be sure?” Keith croaks, keeping his gaze down instead of upwards. That empty spot - once so hard to find - is now all his eyes can focus on. “How can you be so sure that there’s something else?”

 

“Well,” Lance hums, “I’m not. It’s just nicer to think we don’t all disappear in the end. That we go somewhere else, or find life in another form. That we live on, even when we can’t anymore.” 

 

“But-” Keith grabs at Lance’s hand, pulling it away from his face and down towards his chest, where his pulse is strongest.  “If my heart stops beating, and I close my eyes for the last time, what will I see? Just a black landscape? A void of numbness?” He turns on his side, staring at Lance more directly as that missing stars presence grows. “And if there  _ is _ something else, what happens if I wake up and you’re not there with me? What if I die and end up in a place that I can’t reach you?” He strokes Lance’s cheek, ignoring the tears that begin to gather anew in his ducts. “ **I’ve waited so long for this.** For  _ you. _ I’d almost prefer waking up to nothing than be by myself...” 

 

Lance raises up on his elbow, staring into the depths of Keith’s very soul as he leans forward. He wants to say something, Keith knows - can tell by the way Lance’s eyes dart back and forth across his face. But Keith can’t listen to any sort of reassurance right now. 

 

So instead he presses their foreheads together, breathing out slowly so he can breathe in Lance again. That’s all he needs right now. That’s all he wants.

 

More moments like this. More brief forevers with Lance. 

 

But how many of those can he hoard in his life before one day he blinks and it’s over? He’s never feared death before. He used to shrug it off, pretend not to care. And maybe he didn't. Maybe there had been a time in Keith’s years alive where death was, as Lance had said, just another part of life. 

 

But somewhere along the way his mind had changed, and with it the fears had taken root. He worries over death now, for himself...for others. He’s scared of what will happen if he ever loses his friends and family. He has nightmares where he wakes in a cold sweat grasping the sheets beside him, horrified that he’ll find them empty. Lance’s skin is warm, and Keith is petrified of a day when he’ll reach out and find it cold beneath his palm. 

 

And even if they manage to secure a long life and pass peacefully in their sleep, what can Keith do to ensure he stays with Lance? What if they die holding hands and Keith wakes up in the next stage with fingers clutching air? He can’t fathom the idea of being separated from Lance _ now,  _ and he’s  _ alive _ and able to  _ do  _ something about it if they ever were. But what happens if he dies and finds that he can do nothing? That he  _ is _ nothing? Just a space in the sky that no one will remember?

 

He’s never feared death before, until he had so much to lose to it. 

 

And Keith begins to think that maybe it’s not even dying he’s so terrified of, but rather the prospect of being alone at the end of it all. 

 

So he tilts Lance’s chin upwards, keeping his eyes lowered as he hovers in their shared space.

 

“I’m scared, Lance,” he confesses. “I don’t know what happens after we die. I don’t want to become a star that fades from existence without knowing what comes next.” 

 

His words are almost lost to the night: mumbled through an exhale. But Lance hears them. Lance always hears them.

 

Keith feels his hair being tucked behind his ear, and then Lance’s hand is coming around to cradle his cheek, forcing his gaze up to meet his eyes.

 

And it’s an entirely new galaxy that he stares into. New but still familiar. Lance’s eyes hold stars that Keith could spend years trying to map: stars he never wants to watch disappear.

 

“But Keith,” Lance hushes, exuding a calm that Keith submerges into, “we’re all stars. Every single one of us. And stars can’t last forever. They live, and shine, and when the time comes, they die. But that doesn’t mean we forget about them. For millennia people have been staring up at the sky, wondering at stars. We’ve studied them, made them into constellations, wrote songs and poetry and...well, we’ve traveled amongst them. And I can guarantee that no star goes unnoticed. Someone is watching somewhere in all that vastness. Just like I’m watching you, and you’re watching me.”

 

He sinks back to the ground, resting his head on Keith’s chest as he gestures up to the sky.

 

“We’re stardust, Keith. We’re made of the cosmos. And when it comes time to leave this life, we’ll return to the Universe to start the cycle over.”

 

“I don’t want to do that alone…” Keith hears himself say, eyes finding that gap amongst the speckled lights. “I...I can’t-”

 

“You won’t,” Lance lifts his head, smiling as he presses a quick kiss to Keith’s lips. “You won’t because we’re connected. We’ve shared our stardust with each other. Given a part of ourselves to the other to keep. So when we die as the stars we are, we’ll be able to find each other again.”

 

“How?”

 

“Well,” Lance considers for a moment, then grins as he bites his lower lip. “All I’ll have to do is be on the lookout for a particularly angry Red Dwarf-”

 

“Hey-” Keith grunts, but he feels the laughter bubbling in his throat. “I’m taller than you!”

 

“Maybe in this life,” Lance jests, and Keith pulls him back down to his chest, wrapping his arms snuggly around broad shoulders. “And what about me?” Lance continues once settled. “How will you find me again?”

 

Keith hums to himself, feeling his lips twitch upwards fondly.

 

“I think you’d be the most beautiful planet. Full of life and sandy beaches and blue skies that stretch onwards for miles. You’d be like Earth, I think. Home. That’s what I would look for.”

 

Lance doesn’t answer for a moment, and when he lifts his head again his eyes are glossy. 

 

“Keith,” he starts, blinking rapidly, then pouts as he lightly smacks Keith’s upper arm. “No fair! You can’t say something so cheesy after I teased you! It makes me look bad!”

 

And when Keith laughs Lance interrupts it with a kiss, huffing as he pulls away with his own grin.

 

“You don’t need to worry Keith,” Lance soothes after a while, giggles fading to close-lipped smiles. “Death isn’t anything to worry about. We’ll face it together, and if we’re separated, I’ll find you. Again and again, I’ll find you.”

 

Another tear slips down over Keith’s cheek, but he wipes it away, staring at Lance as his heart swells and his fears begin to wither away. 

 

“Not if I find you first,” he whispers back, and Lance rolls his eyes with a contented scoff.

 

“Always the competition with you.”

 

They lay back again, feeling the grass poke through the blanket beneath them as they stare up at the stars.

 

“I still don’t believe in Heaven,” Keith comments, drawing patterns onto Lance’s back.

 

“That’s okay, not everyone does-”

 

“No,” Keith cuts him off. “Ask me why.”

 

Lance tilts his head up, staring at Keith with an inquisitive expression.

 

“Alright,  _ why? _ ” 

 

“Because-” and Keith grins, hugging Lance tighter as he presses his lips to brown hair. “I’m already in it.” 

 

“Keith-!” Lance squeaks, face turning red. But he’s laughing, and then shifting upwards on Keith’s chest so that he’s hovering down overtop of him once more. “You’re so unbelievably cheesy! Which is one of the many reasons why I love you so-”

 

But his sentence is cut short as Keith leans up the rest of the way and kisses him. Another moment of forever, only this time it’s not so brief. This time it lasts a while longer, until both are yawning and their lids hang heavy over their eyes.

 

They fall back to the blanket and stay cuddled close, Lance’s breathing deep and even - his warmth radiating into Keith better than that of the sun. And as the darkness slowly begins to fade with the coming dawn, Keith’s eyes land on that gap in the heavens.

 

That black spot that once held a star. 

 

But he’s not scared anymore. Not as much. 

 

And as he stares up at it he thinks maybe it doesn’t look as empty as before. That that black hole in the canvas of constellations isn’t as noticeable as he once thought. 

 

It’s still there, sure, but as Keith squints up at it, he thinks he sees something begin to glow within it. Not as bright as it’s neighbours, nor as prominent as its predecessor, but still there. Trying. 

 

_ Living _ . 

 

A new star, starting the cycle anew. 

 

Keith smiles, and feels the stardust in his veins shift and settle, no longer worried about what will come next. 

  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
